In recent years, local (e.g. home) Wi-Fi networks have become very popular, and it has been estimated that as of 2011, over 200 million of such Wi-Fi networks have been deployed on a worldwide basis (Parks Associates. “Networks in the Home: Global Growth; A Report for the Wi-Fi Alliance.”). These Wi-Fi networks typically consist of a factory pre-configured wireless router, which is often sold in a package consisting of the router, instructions, instillation software, and other accessories such as a power supply and cable. These packages are intended to allow unskilled users to set up the Wi-Fi system. Typically the instructions inform the unskilled user to first install the software on his or her local computer, connect the router (which may be a combination modem and router) to the local wired internet connection (often a wired DSL or cable connection, but alternatively may be a wired Ethernet connection, or even a fiber optic connection to the internet or other network of interest). The user will then interact with the program software to implement the various setup instructions.
Prior art on Wi-Fi router configuration methods and devices include Liu, U.S. Pat. No. 7,496,754; Lin, U.S. Pat. No. 7,577,458; Mazur et. al., US patent application publication 2008/0172477; Lam et. al., US patent application 2009/0103547, and Patel et. al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,826,463.
Although prior art routers were generally designed to be configured only with the aid of an external computer or computerized device, prior art routers generally had some limited built-in display and input capabilities. For example, use of light emitting diodes (LEDs) to show network status, along with use of a few other user input buttons built into the router chassis (e.g. on/off buttons, reset buttons) were known. Pham, in U.S. Pat. No. 7,675,862 taught using a liquid crystal display (LCD) (3110) along with several user input buttons (3130) mounted on the router chassis (3100) to show the connection status for various computer network elements. However such limited input and output methods remained too cumbersome to allow inexperienced users to easily input or change the complex series of alphanumeric data needed to fully configure routers.
Unfortunately, even with the aid of installation software, the average unskilled user finds the process of installing and configuring a router for a Wi-Fi network to be rather intimidating. In order to be easy to configure, the Wi-Fi router will usually be factory pre-configured with a standard Wi-Fi identification (SSID) which is often just the name of the manufacturer, and will usually by factory configured with a standard administrator password such as “admin” or “password”. Further all Wi-Fi encryption features are usually factory preset to a disabled configuration. Inexperienced users, who usually simply want to simply click “yes” to a number of default installation questions and setup parameters, often don't enable these security features. Once the Wi-Fi network is up and running, the user will then most likely discard the installation software and instructions, and never want to interact with the Wi-Fi router again.
As a result, at present the security of such “home” Wi-Fi networks is very low, and many of these Wi-Fi networks allow an outside attacker to access the Wi-Fi network, and the contents of the various computers attached to that Wi-Fi network, with little or no effort. For example, in 2010, Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, admitted that the company's cars that had been capturing images of local buildings for the Google Street View mapping application had also captured data on millions of local Wi-Fi networks, including samples of non-password protected payload data.
Unfortunately, it is also common knowledge that many local Wi-Fi networks are unsecured, and a recent poll showed that about 32 percent of all respondents admitted that they had tried to access a Wi-Fi network that wasn't theirs.
An additional problem with present Wi-Fi network installation procedures is that even the simple process of accepting all the default settings, and producing an unsecure Wi-Fi network, is often too complex for many unskilled users. As a result, many perfectly good Wi-Fi units are returned to the store, distributor, or manufacturer with a demand for a refund, causing unnecessary hassles and expense for users, stores, distributors, and manufacturers alike.